Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

One of my Favorite Memories was the Smell when you walked into the Warehouse after they had been shut for a month or so the air was blue with vapors and the smell of aging whiskey intense! If you had a cold or sinus it helped opened you right up and your first time in it almost got you feeling loaded! The Vapors near the sealing were dark blue and thick, and I really liked the smell working in them. It was very cool even in the summer when it was in the 90's outside it was nice in there. They always made sure we had Thermel jackets in winter and good work boots and gloves. They if they had to would give us a paper to get shoes. They really took good care of us and if breathing the fumes was not good for us we did not know it! There was never a dull moment working in the warehouses and days went by fast and Happy. Some days we would go to two or three warehouses in a day because it would be a dump day and we would have to dump the right barrels for that days Bottling and often they were in different buildings. Those days the old 1941 Fords would be roaring back and forth taking barrels to warehouses where there were dump trouths. I in my Mind can still hear the old Ford Flat Head V8's Roaring back and forth, being double clutched and going way to fast!
Dave Z
Old Hickory America's Most Magnificent Bourbon
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Another great thing working at Kinsey was the old Linfield Firehouse which offten had good food to buy for lunch things like Pierogies made by the people that went to the Catholic Church in Linfield, also Stuffed Cabbag all kinds of things Zeps also and always tickets for raffels. Right down the road on the big road was a small market and sandwich place that also took Horse Bets under the table then and we had a guy nickmaned Bookie who would go place your bets at lunch time. There were so many things going on there and it was always so quite there you could hear the many Birds singing and the breezes coming up from the river were always very nice. Such good days they were and I think fondly of them!
Dave Z
Old Hickory America's Most Magnificent Bourbon
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Sometimes on a Friday we would Place Bets with Bookie and also send someone with to the Lunch place to get us Burgers, they had real good Burgers and home made. We all Played the Horses then and Mr Harring ( Bookie ) was always taking Book from Us. Some Guys Played cards at Lunch but I did not as the ones that did argued to Much about stuff. If We Worked Hard we did not mind it, we just beleived in the work Ethic and it did not bother us. It was if anything something to be proud of Working earning your Keep and working a Job you really liked. That Combo can not be beat! And they left Us alone and we worked with out having to be watched all the time which today happens all to offten. There were People from the Coal country Of pa who moved down and Irish People and we All got along and worked Hard together. I can not remember much but good days there!
Dave Z
Old Hickory America's most Magnificent Bourbon
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

When I last talked to Ludy who worked at Kinsey from 1936 till 1982 He told me that each of the 3 floors of the Explosion Proof Warehouses had 333,000 barrels of aging whiskey, or 999,000 Per Warehouse with the rest being in the old Wood Brick warehouses. It would be an amazing smell when you went into one of them after it had not been open for a month or so, sometimes almost overpowering was the smell of Whiskey. My Sinus loved it would open my nose right up. The blue vapors were all up at the sealing and you could see them dancing in the light of the sealed explosion proof Lights. After you did it a while it was a very nice smell to you and not overpowering as much as pleasant to me. When I last took a walk in there in one of the buildings that had been open I was greeted by the smell of Whiskey coming out of the cement Floors after all these 37 years and It brought back memories and It was pleasant for the couple of Minutes I was in there. I never thought for a minute back then of Kinsey being out of Bussiness. Yet this is the way things go and it is sad and typical of the times we now live in longevetty is not the thing anymore!
Dave Z
Old Hickory America's Most Magnificent Bourbon
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Originally Posted by mozilla

These are the last of the pictures I have received from Dave. I hope non are duplicates....

If you look at #29 second picture Page 3 the white looking lines running through the walls of the buildings are the thickness of the roof and floors we looked hard at them the other day and they are about at least 24 inches thick or better then 2 foot that is strong!
Dave Z
Old Hickory America's Most Magnificent Bourbon
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

I am revisiting this thread to talk a bit about the Fire Observation room and How very well made these Explosion proof Warehouses were made in the 1940's. When I climbed up the front stairs last Fall to go across the roof to the Room to check it out I first went on all 3 floors and in going up to the third Floor I found out what had caused the fire that burned there. There were remains of many 120 Gallon Whiskey Barrels and looking you could see that the couple of years before when the fire started that Kids must have been up there and the barrles had some old Corn Whiskey in them and somehow they caught it on fire.

The fire Company in order to get to the fire knocked the hole in the wall which I showed in pictures on this thread. The walls of the Building on that floor other then where they put the hole are as strong as ever. When I continued to climb up on the roof and walk to the Fire Observation Room I found that the heat rising from the fire on the floor below was so great back then that the Glass windows had exploded out in the Observation Room and turned to Liquid and melted on the window stils. The frame work buckled.

Yet the Floor in the room held and was fine when I walked there and the roof just above the fire on the building was as strong as ever not even hurt.
These have to be some of the very best built ever Whiskey Warehouses and as I have always said our Products were always very good. Each building had vents and fans and a little heat as I have said. I would love to have seen them building these warehouses. Every floor is filled with heavy steel Rods also the walls and the many Strong Pillers.

I am going to try and research who the company was that built these amazing buildings.
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Here are a couple of Pictures I took on Sunday of the Fire tower, I will be posting some new Pictures from Sunday all over the Plant including the Fire house which I discovered is still there it was just so covered with growth could not see it. I also discovered that the roof of the Old Kinsey Bottling house fell down a result of the fire in it years ago so I took some pictures of it and went in the bottom floor to get some last shots while its standing I will put them all on the Memories Thread. Picture 5 is looking at the back Tank from Building Q The Fire Tower Warehouse, and 6 is looking down at the back of Building L. Also if you have not seen them I posted two Pictures of Ludy on the Memories thread on Sat holding his Stave I gave him to show his years of Service Fricky Did it up for me and I gave it to him about a week ago and his daughter took pictures of him holding it and An Areial Shot of the plant I gave him.
Dave Z
Old Hickory America's most magnificent Bourbon
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Here are two Pictures of the side of Building Q Fire tower building where the Fire company knocked the wall in to put a fire out yeear ago that kids started in Corn Whiskey Barrels. I forgot these this morning!
Dave Z
Kinsey The Unhurried Whiskey
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Below are two more pictures of the fire system at Kinesy.
Pic 1. The Pyrotronic's comand box in the fire house I was finally able to get into through all the growth
Pic 2. Once again look at the size of the main pipes going into the oldest Warehouse in the Plant, Numbers E and this shot on the back half Warehouse D. Built in the early late 1890's / 1900's when Continental Distilling bought the plant in Spring 1941 they not only Sprinkled the New Explosion proof ware houses they also did even this Old Warehouse set. It also had explosion proof Outlets to run the small lift we used in them as no elevator in these. To go up the levels which if you look in the Memories thread you will see a couple of shots looking up from the floor 10 levels up.

You have no choice but to climb up a wood ladder all the way!
Inside the Pyrotronics box in the fire house was a system of monitor lights. I think this had in those days have to be a really Hi End Setup and it shows how Continental always thought ahead. They would once a month stage mock fire fights the local Linfield fire company would come down and they would most times do them around all the Old Buildings allot of times they would do it at Warehouse H and I have some old Fire drill papers from times they did it and once my computer is running I will post them here. If Heaven Hills had done this back in the day their old Distillery would still be there and they would not have lost near as much good Whiskey's. Continental & Mr Neuman always thought these things out and weighed toward what the safest smartest thing was to do and the option for the least loss! As long as they operated we never had any fires and we were able to safely burn out the old metal racks and every single building. No matter how old each building was they had the right extsinguisers in them. If there are any Distillerys today that do not have this protection I think it is a really bad thing. The Fire Chief was Calvin Roberts and his second in command was Stan Stafoniwitz. And their Asistant was Harry Martin. They would run the old Kinsey Mack Fire truck every week,

test all the Fire hydrants every month check all the sprinklers, each Explosion proof warehouse had an out door brick room with vavles that would direct as much water as they could into that building if needed!

And as I have posted way back we even had fire Hydrants in the woods around the Plant! Now working at a very safe plant I really see how ahead they were in their time. And Add to all that the Idea of Building the Fire tower in the fire escape in Building Q at the Highest point in the Plant were you could see everywhere even the fields in the distance, and the extra little room on top of it to give you a better view over the roof side of the building into the woods! By the way the doors to get to the escape were open when ever we went into them we opened the doors for safety and locked them when we closed up to contain a fire if one would start when no one was there! Also even the Elevators had heavy down weighted Fire doors to contain a fire and going out the front first floor two doors one out of the floor and then the door out! Even the roll doors were extra heavy Steel. and when I was in the New Bottling House I happened to see something in one of My pictures that our Safety Expert here where I work Now Randy K showed me when he looked at the pictures printed out, there was a series of emergency low power Battery Lights placed throughout the 1966 bottle house in case of a fire emergency or explosion. He showed me on one of my Pitch black shots a light up on the roof placed to lite an escape. He told me in those days 99&#37; of companys would never have spent for or had that technoligy but Publicker did. Also the work safe signs were unheard of as companies did not want to spend the money. He said to me That must have been a really safe place to work! And when I showed him the Fire proof Phone box in the tank section of the Plant He said they were really with safety there. Safety is his main job here where I work and Fire safety is his biggest thing so for Randy K to be impressed really makes my points!
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon
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Re: The Kinsey Fire Observation Room

Here is a picture of the large work safe sign in the 1966 Bottling House and a picture of the Emergencey Batt & Low Electric Powered Light if you look at the top right you will see it on the wall set to light the area in case of trouble!
This one was way ahead of its time so tells me our Safety Man Randy K!
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon
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